Failure to take a medication when prescribed, or double dosing because a patient has forgotten that he or she already took their medication is a common problem. When taking a new medication, compliance with the physician's instructions is usually fairly good but as the length of the treatment course extends beyond the first few days, patients often become forgetful regardless of their age or mental faculties though these factors may exacerbate the problem.
When taking an antibiotic or other drug treatment, it is often difficult to remember if one has actually taken a pill or merely “intended” to take the pill. As lives become busier and more stressful it becomes harder to remember to take a medication with the prescribed frequency. The problem is compounded when multiple medications with different prescribed dose frequencies are being used at one time.
Research into the issues of prescription medication non-compliance, indicate the significant consequences that result.
The National Pharmaceutical Council estimates that non-compliance costs more than $100 billion a year in the USA alone in increased hospital and nursing home admissions, lost productivity, and premature deaths.
Up to 60% of all medication prescribed is taken incorrectly, or not at all (National Council on Patient Information & Education, 1995).
90% of elderly patients made some medication errors, and 35% make potentially serious errors. Older adults average 2.3 serious medication errors per patient per month (Green et al., 1985).
Even patients who understand and agree with treatment are only 75% compliant (Cramer, 1995).
Physicians themselves take only 75% of prescribed pills correctly (Roth, 1987).
Patients quite possibly are less compliant the more serious their condition. In one study, only 42% of glaucoma patients met minimal criteria for compliance after having been told they would go blind if they did not comply. Among patients who already had gone blind in one eye, compliance rates rose only to 58%! (Meichenbaum & Turk, 1987).
The cost of non-compliance in 1992 was $100 billion, $45 billion to the healthcare industry alone (E-pill, 1999).
Non-compliance is directly responsible for the admission of 380,000 patients to nursing homes each year (23% of all nursing home admissions). In 60% of all nursing home admissions, non-compliance is a greater factor than the person's actual medical condition (Col, Fanale, & Kronholm, 1990; Meichenbaum & Turk, 1987).
Non-compliance leads to 3.5 million hospital admissions annually, or 11% of all admissions. In the elderly, 40% of all admissions are due to medication-related problems. The mean cost per admission in these cases has been estimated at $2,150 (Balkrishnan, 1998).
Non-compliance is the greatest single cause for readmission to hospitals (Meichenbaum & Turk, 1987).